The Wonder Years!

Another year has gone by. And with it, the first decade of the the 21st century has gone by!

2009 has been an eventful year, to say the least. And this decade has probably been the most important ten years of my life. I call them the 'The Wonder Years!' because a lot of important and wonderful events in my personal as well as professional life have happened in this decade. Some of them are:

1) A fast paced 10 years at work working in diverse organisations with a diverse set of people. Huge amounts of learning with great fun! Some 20 hour days actually felt like 20 minutes.

2) I travelled abroad for the first time in my life during the past decade. It is another matter that I hate it a lot now! Especially the longer duration ones.

3) Got married to my childhood sweetheart / crush!

4) Became a father; not once, but twice! Two brats at home; tough to manage, but worth it all! In any case, managing them is a breeze compared to managing my lovely wife...;-p! (I hope this tongue in cheek comment doesn't land me in (or my cheek!) in trouble.)

5) Have been fortunate to have lived in a diverse set of cities; Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai.

6) Bought my first house in Chennai!

7) Bought my first (and now second as well) car!

8) Have worked with some very inspiring colleagues and seniors; who have played a key role in shaping my attitudes and behaviours. (Yes, it is not my fault. It is all their fault!;-p)

Thinking about the decade not only gives me a great sense of satisfaction but also spurs me on to challenge myself to make the most of the next 10 years!

Coming back to the year gone by: An eventful year. A year which began in uncertain times due to the financial crisis around the world. A year when I was awarded a deferred bonus; still not sure why, though! A year in which I decided to move back to Mumbai, closer to my parents and my in-laws. A year when I uprooted myself and my family from our cozy existence in Chennai to put up anchor in the hustle and bustle of the city of Mumbai. Painful, but worth it.

So, what is in store for the new year, 2010!? Who knows? The motto is to give everything my best shot and go with the flow. Because the golden rule applies: One can control only one's own thought and actions! I did promise though, in my last blog, that I would be thinking about my resolutions. After scratching my brains to come up with challenging and achievable resolutions, I could come up with only the below:

1) Spend more time with the family. More quality time.

2) Lifestyle changes to become more disciplined about my health. Weed out some of the undesirable habits in make room for some healthier ones!

I am determined to take care of myself and my family. Please take care of yourself.

Great Expectations

Two hours to claim one piece of baggage!

That is the amount of time it took me to retrieve my baggage at the international airport in Mumbai recently after a 9 hour flight. While there has been an effort to develop our airports by the Airports Authority of India and its private contractors, a lot still needs to be done in terms of services at these airports. There is no signage anywhere. Most of the times, utter chaos prevails. Compare this to Heathrow, Schipol or a Changi and you should know the difference.

The weather in London was really depressing, dull and dark (and wet, for good measure). However the visit was very productive. And I got to travel once more on my favourite public transport system, The Underground! The tube has changed, the traffic seems to be more, but it is nowhere near the Mumbai local train rush. The only regret, apart from the bad weather in London was not being able to meet up with some of my acquaintances in London due to the busy schedule.

Back home, got Suryanksh admitted to school (Jr.KG). The fees is probably equal to the entire spend on my graduation and post-graduation studies! And guess, what I might lose it all if I decide to enroll him into another school! The education sector makes great business sense to me, actually!

Next in line was my continued hunt for a car. After extensive research I did do a couple of test drives this weekend and have FINALLY booked a car! I just hope that it gets to me before Christmas begins.....

Speaking of Christmas, the New Year is not too far either and so is...resolutions-making time! Have been thinking about that lately and hence my next blog might just be all about my resolutions, which would, of course, last for a couple of days!

Till then...

P.S: By now, it should be amply clear, that the title of this blog has nothing to do with one Mr. Charles Dickens!

Problem of Plenty

One of the last items on my to do list before I relocated from Chennai to Mumbai was to sell my 'value for money' car. The reason I decided to do this was, to avoid all the hassles of obtaining a NOC from Tamilnadu RTO, re-registering the vehicle in Mumbai, pay a truckload of money as road tax in Mumbai and claim a refund for the same from Tamilnadu RTO. Most importantly, I guess, it was my phobia of dealing with the bureaucratic government machinery (read RTO), which encouraged me to cordially part with my 'Rampyaari' in Chennai. Which is what I did, on the day I left Chennai.

Little did I know that once I reach Mumbai, the search for a new car would be an even bigger headache! Solely because of such a wide variety of products on offer! It is so confusing!

The last few days I have been doing some research on various car brands & models trying to ascertain what is right for me, and my pocket! I have already discounted the Germans, the Czech and the English brands because they are out of my reach. The Japanese, the Koreans, the Americans and last but not the least, our own home grown Indian brands are what I am looking at. To begin with there are so many competing brands. Each brand has a suite of models to cater to each segment of the Indian market. Each model has at least 3-4 variants depending on the features included in the variant! Phew!

Consider this: A Indo-Japanese (now almost fully Japanese) brand has 15 different models of cars. One of the models has 8 different variants! The difference between each of the variant is only the existence / non-existence of one or two features!

Given this landscape, how does one decide which product to buy? And I have not even stepped into a car dealership to look at the actual cars!

The problem of plenty confronts the consumer. We were probably better off a few decades back, when the only choice that one had was between an Ambassador and a Premier Padmini!

Scale Trouble

For any service organisation, the ability to manage scale is a huge advantage. If not managed carefully and adequately, the consequences can be disastrous, resulting in eroding the brand equity, very quickly. This is a no brainer. I am no management guru.

I have been having immense trouble trying to track the status of a high value cheque that I deposited at the ATM of the largest private sector bank in this country, more than 10 days back! I have been told that the only way I can know the fate of my cheque is to know the cheque number. As luck would have it, I did not record the cheque number on the counterfoil of the deposit slip.

I find it quite surprising that a bank of this size and scale does not have a Plan B! Being an operations professional myself, I felt it necessary to comment on the fact that such a huge bank with lakhs of retail clients, does not have adequate processes to track the transactions of its clients. I have been told that multiple agencies internal to the bank like Relationship Management, Service Management and Branch Management are on the job to search this elusive instrument!

I see this as a classic case of too much, too soon. I am sure I am not the only client having trouble with this bank, which has grown its client base as well as the product portfolio so fast. Probably there is little time to worry about servicing those clients & products.

Meanwhile the search still continues.....wish me luck!

National Shame

Cricket is a passion. I love the game. A lot of my close friends and family know this. That is exactly why all these people preferred to steer clear of me today. Wisely so as well, because talking to me today, would not have made for cheerful conversation.

India lost another series to Australia today. This, inspite of we being the most populous nation amonst the test match playing nations. It is shameful that we cannot find 11 talented individuals who can collectively be world beaters in a country of billions.

The sport in India cannot even complain. There is no dearth of funding. More than 70% of revenues generated from the game globally comes from India. The BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) is the richest sports body in the country. An association with mainstream cricket, either as a player or as an administrator, is a passport to windfall gains.

The skipper says his team is not mentally strong. I agree. The team, though much stronger willed than the teams of previous decades, is a bunch of weaklings who get exposed when faced with tough and challenging situations.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Apparently, this is not applicable to the Indian cricket team.

Gender Psychology

I have often heard that shopping is a great antidote to depression. Splurging money gives one a sense of power which is much stronger than the incumbent depression.

This, I guess, might only be applicable to the fairer sex. In men, it works the other way round. I am acutely aware of this, because I was the victim today.

Over the last few days, since we relocated to Mumbai, Priya (my better half!) has been cribbing non-stop about the need to buy some furniture / storage space. After doing the usual thing of asking her to make a list of everything that she thinks we want, on a piece of paper and then dilly dallying on the list, we ended up at a Furniture Mall late this evening. And guess what, by the time we got out of there, we had bought everything on that list, leaving a huge hole in my pocket, notwithstanding my earlier protests and insistence of buying only a select and necessary few on that list.

I realised, as the evening progressed, Priya became more and more cheerful and I was getting frustrated and ticked off by even small irritants. Probably the intensity of these outbursts was also a result of the pain points of the entire relocation process itself. But that is a completely different topic altogether and deserves a separate blog for itself.

I think the best solution to get rid of this awful feeling would be to catch a good night's sleep, which I shall now do.

Good night and take care of yourself.

Blogging

It is 5.30 AM and I have just created my first blog site.

You might say that I am quite an early riser, however that assumption would not be entirely correct. The fact of the matter is that I could not get any sleep tonight and hence was trying to catch up on my mails. One thing led to another and I ended up on one of my friend's (Navin) blog site. I have also been quite keenly following the blog sites of two other friends (Venkat & Vijay) for quite sometime now.

Hence this narcissistic extravagance of creating my own blog site can be attributed to a combination of sleep deprived disorientation and a commonplace herd mentality. One could also term the later as being inspired by my friends' creative exploits on their respective blog sites.

I must really catch some sleep now before wifey and kids wake up. Hope to keep this going.

P.S : Is it insomnia or just too much beer on a Friday night?